The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the publication of a report, titled Biofuels and Bioproducts from Wet and Gaseous Waste Streams: Challenges and Opportunities.

According to the US department, the report is the first comprehensive assessment of the resource potential and technology opportunities provided by feedstocks, including wastewater treatment-derived sludge and biosolids, animal manure, food waste, inedible fats and greases, biogas, and carbon dioxide streams.

These feedstocks can be converted into renewable natural gas, diesel, and aviation fuels, or into valuable bioproducts.

Complementary to the ‘2016 Billion-Ton Report’, this new resource assessment, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, concludes that wet and gaseous organic waste streams represent a substantial and underutilized set of feedstocks for biofuels and biopower.

The analysis found that the United States has the potential to use 77 million dry tons of wet waste per year, which would generate about 1,300 trillion British thermal units (Btu) of energy.